March 5 Letters to the Editor

March 5, 2009 6:26 pm

Hero service

At 5 a.m. it’s dark and bitterly cold, and it has been snowing. Looking out the window, I see footprints on the driveway, left by that most faithful and courageous Sunriser, Reg Arnold. He walks the extra distance to the backdoor because someone was taking the paper from the front door. He has been delivering the Bangor Daily News for many years and never misses a day, whatever the weather.

A hero in my book.

Christina Diebold

Bangor

···

Modern bank robbery

Willie Sutton is laughing in his grave. However, I think he regrets his methods of robbing banks. He would love the current model. Modern bankers have developed a much better system.

The Wall Street Journal reported Feb. 28 that David Carroll, a banking executive who wound up at Wells Fargo, coming over from Wachovia, could get as much as $17.9 million in salary, bonuses and stock options if he works for all of 2009. Banks and politicians think that somehow paying mentally challenged bankers million-dollar salaries will somehow make them smart.

The U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the White House have shoveled billions upon billions of dollars to big Wall Street banks. The bankers have, in return, passed around the money to all the bank executives and managers, giving each other hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and stock options. All the while, Maine’s somnolent Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins along with sleepy Reps. Michael Michaud and Chellie Pingree continue to support giving billions of dollars to the current crop of modern-day bank robbers.

Meanwhile, Mainers struggle to keep food and shelter for themselves and their families. Mainers should form a posse to track down these modern bank robbers and string them up. It is time for frontier justice.

Thomas L. McCormack

Limestone

···

In my tribe

For years I have been dismayed by the total inability of various sects in the Middle East to look beyond their own tribal loyalties. Their narrow minds seem incapable of considering anything beyond the tribe. National interest means nothing, and global considerations play for naught. What is wrong with these people?

Then I realized that we are afflicted with the same problem here. The only difference is that we call them political parties.

Regardless of the merits of the stimulus package, how is it possible with an issue that large, that complicated and that expensive, that the parties managed to yet again vote along party lines? With the exception of our senators (and one other) were there no dissenters? Was there no one who could say, “Gee the other guy has a good idea”?

Alas no. The good Democrats and Republicans in Washington are simply knee-jerk loyalists to their respective tribes, no different from those people in the Middle East. They just dress better.

Jim Austin

Dover-Foxcroft

···

Defending marriage

It is generally understood that marriage has been the basic sustaining structure of the social fabric since prehistoric times. But, within the past 50 years it has been damaged and threatened more than at any period since the onset of recorded time.

The sexual revolution of the 1960s, the radical feminist movement and the advent of no-fault divorce have resulted in a pandemic of divorces and births outside marriage. In our local schools the majority of students do not live with their biological father or do not know him. Within the black community three-fourths of all births are to single mothers. Yet we are perplexed over why suicide, psychological problems, drug abuse and antisocial behavior is so prevalent amongst the young. Is it any wonder that they are so confused?

The homosexual community has posed still another threat. In the 1970s, homosexual behavior amongst consenting adults was finally decriminalized. Since then they have successfully received further protection under anti-discrimination clauses and hate crime inclusion. Now they are campaigning for their unions to be classified as marriage when every previous moral, religious, sociological and legal definition describes marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Let us not add the deviant behavior of 2 percent to 3 percent of the population to the burden marriage and society must bear.

David G. Summers

Skowhegan

···

The agony of victory

As the basketball season comes to an end, I believe it’s time we all begin to question the integrity of the sport. Is it really all about winning? Do coaches really believe in only four or five kids? I think we all know the answers to these questions, and yet we do nothing about it.

As an educator, I wonder what parents would think if I decided on the first day of school that I would only teach the students I believe will be my star students and to heck with the rest of the class.

Don’t get me wrong. Life is not fair. Furthermore, it is just a game, but to many kids, it’s more than a game. One negative experience can scar a kid for life. Don’t believe me? Go ahead, ask some people. I think you’ll be surprised at the answers.

So, we watch the same kids play and play and play, and according to the laws of probability, they generally improve and score lots of points. Meanwhile, we watch some kids practice and sit, and practice and sit. For what? To practice being a good sport or to feel crushed and dejected?

Shame on those who think it’s OK for this tradition to continue. As for me, I’ll continue to support my children in whatever interests they have, even if that means basketball, but when the day comes when it’s just not fun anymore, I’ll thank my lucky stars they have other talents besides sports.

Julie Cyr DeTour

Sherman

···

Dirty oxymoron

“Clean coal” is an oxymoron if ever one existed. Whoever came up with that phrase must never have been in a coal mine. It’s time to clean up our act, a feat coal miners would probably welcome with open, clean(er) arms and happier, healthier lungs.